Page 32 of If Looks Could Kill
I gestured to Pearl. “You’re looking at a championship paper-seller right here.”
To my surprise, Pearl got on board. She scanned the headlines and began calling out, “Fire in the Five Points! Rescuers Unable to Reach the Kansas Miners! London’s Horror—The Whitechapel Excitement Grows More Intense!”
Oscar’s rebuke to Pearl followed me as I pushed my way into a diner.“?’Ere! You’re doin’ it wrong. You don’treaddem papers, yousells’em!”
And “sells ’em” she did. By the time I came out of the diner armed with a roast beef sandwich and a pickle, Pearl was distributing papers and collecting pennies from a gaggle of men suddenly overwhelmed with journalistic curiosity. Oscar watched, open-mouthed.
“Here you go, sir.” I presented him the sandwich. “We kept our part of the bargain. Let me see you eat this.”
He took an enormous bite of the sandwich. “The pretty one’s gotta keep selling,” he said through a barely chewed mouthful, “or no deal.”
“Do you promise to swear off rum and whiskey?” Pearl asked him.
He laughed through his meal. “Haw! Haw!”
“Fine,” Pearl said. “No more liquor this week?”
He stuffed another bite into his face and winked at her.
With each reply, she grew more upset. “You incorrigible little imp,” she said. “If I sell enough papers now to meet your quota, promise you won’t touch a drop to drinktonight.”
The little dealmaker scrunched up his forehead and took a thoughtful bite of pickle with his scraggly teeth. “You got no way of knowing if I keep that promise or if I ain’t.”
That was a fact.
“But this here pickle’s an extra-good one,” he said, waving its stump in my direction, “so all righty. You win, Sallys. I’ll stay off the juice. Tonight. For the two of yous.”
“Oh,thankyou,” said Pearl with a deep bow, “Your Majesty.”
“Come to classes at the Five Points Mission School,” I told him, thinking I might as well try. “For every class you attend, we’ll help you sell more papers.”
Oscar scowled at this but didn’t refuse the idea, which I found promising.
We stayed a few more minutes, during which time Pearl made selling papers look like picking buttercups. When Oscar’s quota for the day was satisfied, we took our leave of him.
“We haven’t a prayer,” Pearl groaned. “If tiny children are raised on rum, what hope do we have of leading adults away from it?”
“Maybe the Temperance ladies will carry the day,” I said, “and put a stopper on booze.”
“When pigs fly,” she muttered.
There seemed no point in trying to cheer her up. So I didn’t bother.The pretty one.Bah.
“Oh!” Pearl cried. “Look!”
She pointed to a petite young woman passing by. I turned back to Pearl in confusion.
“Never mind,” she said. “I thought it was Freyda. Suppose she’s forgotten about us?”
“Maybe she thinks we’ve forgotten about her,” I said. “But she’s probably moved on from us. There are lots more interesting things to write about than us.”
“That girl in the window,” Pearl said. “I’ll betshefeels the world has forgotten her.”
I squirmed at that. October had been so occupied with all our soupy, soapy work that I largelyhadforgotten about her. Some rescuers we were.
“I hope she’s all right,” Pearl said. “I hope she’s still alive.”
Of course she’s still alive, I wanted to say. Don’t be melodramatic. But she might not be. She might be ill or dying. Shame on me, a lifetime of shame, for not doing more, and sooner.
